Easter Island -- World Heritage Site -- National Geographic Criteria: (i)(iii)(v) Reason: Easter Island’s silent stone figures are a monument to the seafaring skills and unique culture of ancient Polynesian peoples. Rapa Nui’s mysterious moai statues stand in silence but speak volumes about the achievements of their creators. The stone blocks, carved into head-and-torso figures, average 13 feet (4 meters) tall and 14 tons. The effort to construct these monuments and move them around the island must have been considerable—but no one knows exactly why the Rapa Nui people undertook such a task. Most scholars suspect that the moai were created to honor ancestors, chiefs, or other important personages, However, no written and little oral history exists on the island, so it’s impossible to be certain. A Polynesian society blossomed in this unlikely locale after hardy souls somehow navigated a fleet of wooden outrigger canoes to this tiny speck in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.

Here, in isolation some 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) west of South America and 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) from the nearest neighboring island, the Rapa Nui developed a distinct architectural and artistic culture. That culture reached its zenith during the tenth to 16th centuries, when the Rapa Nui carved and erected some 900 moai across the island. It is generally thought that the Rapa Nui’s demise resulted from an environmental catastrophe of their own making. It’s not clear when the islands were first settled; estimates range from A.D. 800 to 1200. It’s also not clear how quickly the island ecosystem was wrecked—but a major factor appears to be the cutting of millions of giant palms to clear fields or make fires. It is possible that Polynesian rats, arriving with human settlers, may have eaten enough seeds to help to decimate the trees. Either way, loss of the trees exposed the island’s rich volcanic soils to serious erosion. When Europeans arrived in 1722, they found the island mostly barren and its inhabitants few.

Today’s tourists are numerous, and most visit the Rano Raraku quarry, which yielded the stones used for almost all of the island’s moai. Rapa Nui’s ancient inhabitants left the quarry in a fascinating condition—it is home to some 400 statues, which appear in all stages of completion. Meanwhile, across the entire island, many moai are reversing the creation process and deteriorating rapidly from priceless carvings back into plain rock. The volcanic stone is subject to weathering, and intensive conservation efforts are needed to help preserve Rapa Nui’s stone legacy in its present, awe-inspiring state. How to Get There It’s miraculous that Polynesian peoples ever reached Rapa Nui in the first place. Getting there today is far easier, but the island is still very far afield. Long flights service Rapa Nui from Santiago, Chile and Tahiti. When to Visit High season on Rapa Nui is the Southern Hemisphere summer—January to March. Though winter can get a bit chilly, average maximums still hover around 72ºF (22ºC) and minimums dip to only 57ºF (14ºC)—so the weather is really rather pleasant year-round.

Reduced crowds are an added attraction in the off-season. How to Visit Cars, motorcycles, and mountain bikes are available for hire and all are good ways for visitors to explore the island’s scattered archaeological sites. While most people visit Rapa Nui to explore its cultural history the island is also home to some excellent diving, surfing, and enticing beaches when a bit of relaxation is in order. Comment on This Story Easter Island (Rapa Nui) & Moai Statues Easter Island (Rapa Nui) & Moai Statues By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | October 16, 2012 02:14pm ET MORE Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island (a name given to it by Europeans), is located in the southeast Pacific and is famous for its approximately 1,000 carvings of moai, human-faced statues. The island measures about 14 miles (22 km) by 7 miles (11 km) at its furthest points and it is often said that it can be traversed by foot in a single day. The volcanic island is the most isolated inhabited landmass on Earth.

The closest inhabited land is the Pitcairn Islands, located about 1,200 miles (1,900 km) to the west. Chile, the closest South American country, is located about 2,300 miles (3,700 km) to the east. Easter Island "heads" on the slope of Rano Raraku volcano. Credit: Image via Shutterstock The famous carvings are massive, up to 40 feet (12 meters) tall and 75 tons in weight. They were decorated on top with “Pukao,” a soft red stone in the shape of a hat. The statues also have torsos buried beneath the heads . Recent analysis of radiocarbon dating from the island indicate that Rapa Nui was first settled around A.D. 1200 , a period in which Polynesians voyaged to the east Pacific and perhaps also to South America and California. According to legend, a chief named Hotu Matu’a, having learned of Rapa Nui from an advance party of explorers, led a small group of colonists, perhaps no more than 100 people, to the island.

Their place of origin is a mystery and may have been the Marquesas Islands, located 2,300 miles (3,700 km) to the northwest of Rapa Nui. Another suggestion is Rarotonga, located 3,200 miles (5,200 km) to the southwest of the island. In any case, the voyage would have been an arduous one that may have involved tacking against the wind. A deforested environment When people first came to Rapa Nui, around 800 years ago, they would have found the island overgrown with palm trees, among other vegetation. In the centuries that followed Rapa Nui was deforested until, by the 19th century, the landscape was utterly barren. How this occurred is a matter of debate. When people arrived at Rapa Nui they brought with them (whether intentionally or not) the Polynesian rat, a creature that reproduces rapidly and which the Polynesians sometimes consumed. This species had no natural enemies on the island and may have played a major role in deforestation .

The popular claim that the island’s palm trees were felled to create devices to move the moai statues is probably incorrect. According to ancient stories the statues “walked” from the quarries to their place on stone platforms (known as ahu) and, indeed, research has shown that two small teams using ropes can move the statues vertically. A recent demonstration of this was recorded on a YouTube video (below) by Terry Hunt, a University of Hawaii professor, and Carl Lipo, a professor at California State University Long Beach. It is also noted by Hunt and Lipo that the deforestation of the island may not have led to a food crisis. They point out in their book, "The Statues that Walked" (Free Press, 2011) that abundant rocks on the island allowed for the construction of stone-protected gardens known as “manavai.” These stone gardens would have been supported by lithic mulching, a process by which minerals from rocks fertilize the soil. The people of the island, it appears, had enough food not only to build and move statues, but also to develop a written script, today known as Rongorongo, which researchers are still trying to decipher.

Moai mystery In their book, Hunt and Lipo provide more evidence for the idea that the statues were moved vertically. They note the presence of pathways or “roads” that lead from quarry sites to moai locations in the southeast, northwest and southwest parts of the island. Some of Easter Island's famous stone Moai statues stood more than 30 feet high and weighed up to 82 tons. Credit: Terry Hunt/University of Hawaii, Manoa “The evidence on the ground revealed that roads were not part of some overall planned network. Rather they are the remnants of paths that moai transporters took as they walk the statues across the landscape,” they write. While this helps explain how the statues were moved around the island, it doesn’t explain why. Scholars don’t know what the reasons were for creating the statues, but they have noted several features that provide clues. The statues on their platforms can be found ringing almost the entire coast of the island. Remarkably, despite their seaside location, every single one of the moai appears to face inland and not out to sea, suggesting that they were meant to honour people or deities located within Rapa Nui itself.

Construction of the moai statues appears to have stopped around the time of European contact in 1722, when Dutch explorers landed on Easter Day. Over the next century the moai would fall over, either intentionally pushed over or from simple neglect. Why construction was abandoned is another mystery. It’s known that disease ravaged the island’s people after contact and that the islanders had a desire for European goods. Early explorers recorded that hats were particularly popular among the people of the island. Regardless of what the moai were intended for, and why construction of them stopped, today the popularity of the statues is higher than ever. Many statues have been re-erected on their ahu bases and Rapa Nui now has a population of more than 5,000 people, its hotels and facilities supporting a thriving modern tourism industry. NOVA Online | Secrets of Easter Island | Stone Giants Stone Giants On average, they stand 13 feet high and weigh 14 tons, human heads-on-torsos carved in the male form from rough hardened volcanic ash.

The islanders call them "moai," and they have puzzled ethnographers, archaeologists, and visitors to the island since the first European explorers arrived here in 1722. In their isolation, why did the early Easter Islanders undertake this colossal statue-building effort? Unfortunately, there is no written record (and the oral history is scant) to help tell the story of this remote land, its people, and the significance of the nearly 900 giant moai that punctuate Easter Island's barren landscape. What do they mean? The moai and ceremonial sites are along the coast, with a concentration on Easter Island's southeast coast. Here, the moai are more 'standardized' in design, and are believed to have been carved, transported, and erected between AD 1400 and 1600. They stand with their backs to the sea and are believed by most archaeologists to represent the spirits of ancestors, chiefs, or other high-ranking males who held important positions in the history of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, the name given by the indigenous people to their island in the 1860s.

Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg , who has studied the moai for many years, believes the statues may have been created in the image of various paramount chiefs. They were not individualized portrait sculptures, but standardized representations of powerful individuals. The moai may also hold a sacred role in the life of the Rapa Nui, acting as ceremonial conduits for communication with the gods. According to Van Tilburg, their physical position between earth and sky puts them on both secular and sacred ground; secular in their representation of chief and their ability to physically prop up the sky, and sacred in their proximity to the heavenly gods. Van Tilburg concludes, "The moai thus mediates between sky and earth, people and chiefs, and chiefs and gods." What is an ahu? The word "ahu" has two meanings in Easter Island culture. First, an ahu is the flat mound or stone pedestal upon which the moai stand. The ahus are, on average, about four feet high. The word 'ahu' also signifies a sacred ceremonial site where several moai stand. Ahu Akivi, for example, is an ahu site with seven standing moai.

Moai Stats The following statistics on Easter Island's moai are the results of Van Tilburg's survey in 1989. She reported, "A total of 887 monolithic statues has been located by the survey to date on Easter Island...397 are still in situ in quarries at the Rano Raraku central production center.....Fully 288 statues (32% of 887) were successfully transported to a variety of image ahu locations....Another 92 are recorded as "in transport," 47 of these lying in various positions on prepared roads or tracks outside the Rano Raraku zone." Number of Moai Total number of moai on Easter Island: 887 Total number of maoi that were successfully transported to their final ahu locations: 288 (32% of 887) Total number of moai still in the Rano Raraku quarry: 397 (45%) Total number of moai lying 'in transit' outside of the Rano Raraku quarry: 92 (10%) Less than one third of all carved moai actually made it to a final ceremonial ahu site.

Was this due to the inherent difficulties in transporting them? Were the ones that remain in the quarry (45%) deemed culturally unworthy of transport? Were they originally intended to remain in place on the quarry slopes? Or had the islanders run out of the resources necessary to complete the Herculean task of carving and moving the moai? Size and weight of moai Measuring the size, weight, and shape of the 887 moai on Easter Island has been a 15-year process for Van Tilburg.

The most notable statues are listed below: Largest moai: Location: Rano Raraku Quarry, named "El Gigante" Height: 71.93 feet, (21.60 meters) Weight: approximately 145-165 tons (160-182 metric tons) Largest moai once erect: Location: Ahu Te Pito Kura, Named "Paro" Height: 32.63 feet (9.80 meters) Weight: approximately 82 tons (74.39 metric tons) Largest moai fallen while being erected: Location: Ahu Hanga Te Tenga Height: 33.10 feet (9.94 meters) Smallest standing moai: Do the Easter Island Heads Really Have Bodies? Do the Easter Island Heads Really Have Bodies? By Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer | May 25, 2012 11:00am ET MORE Easter Island "heads" on the slope of Rano Raraku volcano.

Credit: Image via Shutterstock The mysterious Easter Island statues — hundreds of huge, ancient carved stone heads that guard the hilly Pacific island landscape — may actually have bodies, according to an email showing excavations at the site. The email, which made the rounds in May 2012, contained photos of a startling excavation project at Easter Island. According to the email, archaeologists were in the process of unearthing the statues' bodies, which were gradually buried by 500-plus years of erosion. But are those surprising images, and the excavation project they depict, actually real? Are the famous Easter Island heads really full-bodied figures? [ Image Gallery: Walking Easter Island Statues ] Turns out, so many people were seeking an answer that "we were swamped by over 3 million hits and our site crashed," said Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project , which had indeed been excavating two of the statues' buried bodies since 2010.

Photos of the dig posted on the project website, and older photos taken of full-bodied Easter Island statues that were excavated in the 1950s, have been collected together in the chain email, driving that past surge of interest in the excavation project, and confusion about what's real. Back of one of the statues being excavated, showing petroglyphs. Credit: Easter Island Statue Project "The reason people think they are [only] heads is there are about 150 statues buried up to the shoulders on the slope of a volcano, and these are the most famous, most beautiful and most photographed of all the Easter Island statues," Van Tilburg, who is also a fellow at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Life's Little Mysteries . "This suggested to people who had not seen photos of [other unearthed statues on the island] that they are heads only." In fact, archaeologists have studied the statues on the island for about a century, and have been aware of the torsos beneath the statues' heads since the earliest excavations in 1914.

[ The Most Monumental Monument Mistakes ] The statues, whose traditional name is "moai," were carved from volcanic rock between A.D. 1100 and 1500 by ancient Polynesians. They range in size, with the tallest reaching 33 feet (10 meters). Although their significance is still somewhat of a mystery, the moai are thought to have been representations of the indigenous peoples' ancestors. Tribespeople would probably have carved a new statue each time an important tribal figure passed away, Van Tilburg said. The new excavation work intends to document for the first time the complex carvings found on the buried statues' bodies, which have been protected from weathering by their burial. But the project will also help preserve the ancient monoliths , she said. "We have a team that accompanies us and they consolidate and protect the stone by applying chemicals and water repellant." Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @ nattyover . Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @ llmysteries , then join us on Facebook . Easter Island Mystery Solved? New Theory Says Giant Statues Rocked Easter Island Mystery Solved?

New Theory Says Giant Statues Rocked Potbellies might help explain how the moai were moved. View Images To move each moai, two groups may have rocked it side to side while a rear group kept it upright. Illustration by Fernando G. Baptista, National Geographic For centuries, scientists have tried to solve the mystery of how the colossal stone statues of Easter Island moved. Now there's a new theory—and it rocks. Related Content Mystery of Bizarre Bird Deformities May Be Solved The multiton behemoths traveled up to 11 miles (18 kilometers) from the quarry where most of them were carved, without the benefit of wheels, cranes, or even large animals. Scientists have tested many ideas in the past, figuring that the islanders must have used a combination of log rollers, ropes, and wooden sledges. Now a pair of archaeologists have come up with a new theory: Perhaps the statues, known as moai, were "engineered to move" upright in a rocking motion, using only manpower and rope.

Watch video: Easter Island statues rocking forward Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of California State University Long Beach have worked closely with archaeologist Sergio Rapu, who's part of the South Pacific island's population of indigenous Rapanui, to develop their idea. They've observed that fat bellies allowed the statues to be tilted forward easily, and heavy, D-shaped bases could have allowed handlers to roll and rock the moai side to side. Last year, in experiments funded by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council , Hunt and Lipo showed that as few as 18 people could, with three strong ropes and a bit of practice, easily and relatively quickly maneuver a ten-foot (three-meter), five-ton moai replica a few hundred yards (a few hundred meters). No logs were required. (National Geographic News is a division of the Society.) View Images In previous efforts to solve the mystery, Czech engineer Pavel Pavel worked with Norwegian explorer-adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and a team of 17 helpers to propel an upright, 13-foot (4-meter), nine-ton moai forward with twisting motions, keeping the statue fully upright at all times. That was in 1986.

But Pavel's team damaged the moai's base and had to stop. (Related: "Easter Island Settled Later, Depleted Quicker Than Thought?" ) A year later U.S. archaeologist Charles Love and a team of 25 erected a 13-foot (4-meter), nine-ton model upright on a wooden sledge and moved it over log rollers, advancing it 148 feet (45 meters) in two minutes. Easter Island Easter Island The Moai statues of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) One of the world's most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small, hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. Located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, it is considered to be the world’s most remote inhabited island. Sixty-three square miles in size and with three extinct volcanoes (the tallest rising to 1674 feet), the island is, technically speaking, a single massive volcano rising over ten thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean floor.

The oldest known traditional name of the island is Te Pito o Te Henua, meaning ‘The Center (or Navel) of the World.’ In the 1860’s Tahitian sailors gave the island the name Rapa Nui, meaning ‘Great Rapa,’ due to its resemblance to another island in Polynesia called Rapa Iti, meaning ‘Little Rapa’. The island received its most well known current name, Easter Island, from the Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen who became the first European to visit Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722. In the early 1950s, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (famous for his Kon-Tiki and Ra raft voyages across the oceans) popularized the idea that the island had been originally settled by advanced societies of Indians from the coast of South America. Extensive archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic research has conclusively shown this hypothesis to be inaccurate.

It is now considered likely that the original inhabitants of Easter Island are of Polynesian stock (DNA extracts from skeletons have confirmed this), that they most probably came from the Marquesas or Society islands, and that they arrived as early as 318 AD (carbon dating of reeds from a grave confirms this). It is estimated that the original colonists, who may have been lost at sea, arrived in only a few canoes and numbered fewer than 100. At the time of their arrival, much of the island was forested, was teeming with land birds, and was perhaps the most productive breeding site for seabirds in the Polynesia region. Because of the plentiful bird, fish and plant food sources, the human population grew and gave rise to a rich religious and artistic culture. That culture's most famous features are its enormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 of which once stood upon massive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart and creating an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island.

Another 600 moai statues, in various stages of completion, are scattered around the island, either in quarries or along ancient roads between the quarries and the coastal areas where the statues were most often erected. Nearly all the moai are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku volcano. The average statue is 14 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Some moai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons (one statue only partially quarried from the bedrock was 65 feet long and would have weighed an estimated 270 tons). Depending upon the size of the statues, it has been estimated that between 50 and 150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside on sleds and rollers made from the island's trees. Moai statues, Easter Island The Paschalococos disperta and the Saphora toromiro were once the island’s most bountiful trees and sediment samples dating from 200 AD indicate an abundance of pollen from both trees in the island biota at that time.

The Paschalococos disperta bear a striking resemblance to the still-surviving Jubaea chilensis, the Chilean wine palm, which grows up eighty feet tall and six feet in diameter. Thus the Paschalococos disperta palm tree trunks are the most probable candidates for the solution to the transportation of the enormous moai from their carving location at the Rano Raraku volcano to the many locations where they were erected around the island. These trees were also important to the islanders for fuel and for the construction of houses and ocean-fishing canoes. The moai and ahu were in use as early as AD 500, the majority were carved and erected between AD 1000 and 1650, and they were still standing when Jacob Roggeveen visited the island in 1722. Recent research has shown that certain statue sites, particularly the most important ones with great ahu platforms, were periodically ritually dismantled and reassembled with ever-larger statues. A small number of the moai were once capped with ‘crowns’ or ‘hats’ of red volcanic stone.

The meaning and purpose of these capstones is not known, but archaeologists have suggested that the moai thus marked were of pan-island ritual significance or perhaps sacred to a particular clan. Scholars are unable to definitively explain the function and use of the moai statues. It is assumed that their carving and erection derived from an idea rooted in similar practices found elsewhere in Polynesia but which evolved in a unique way on Easter Island. Archaeological and iconographic analysis indicates that the statue cult was based on an ideology of male, lineage-based authority incorporating anthropomorphic symbolism. The statues were thus symbols of authority and power, both religious and political. But they were not only symbols. To the people who erected and used them, they were actual repositories of sacred spirit. Carved stone and wooden objects in ancient Polynesian religions, when properly fashioned and ritually prepared, were believed to be charged by a magical spiritual essence called mana. The ahu platforms of Easter Island were the sanctuaries of the people of Rapa Nui, and the moai statues were the ritually charged sacred objects of those sanctuaries.

While the statues have been toppled and re-erected over the centuries, the mana or spiritual presence of Rapa Nui is still strongly present at the ahu sites and atop the sacred volcanoes. Mystery surrounds the purpose of the ahu platforms and moai statues but even more perplexing mysteries have begun to surface from the research of scholars outside the boundaries of conventional archaeology. As previously mentioned, orthodox archaeologists hypothesize that Easter Island was initially settled sometime around 320 AD by a small group of Polynesians lost on the open sea. Other scholars, however, have suggested that the tiny island may once have been part of a larger island whose original discovery and use may be several thousands of years earlier in time (it is known, for example, that Melanesians were journeying around the Pacific in boats as early as 5500 BC). Three researchers in particular, Graham Hancock, Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath, believe that Easter Island was an important node in a global grid of sacred geography that predates the great floods of archaic times.

Easter Island, writes Graham Hancock, is “part of a massive subterranean escarpment called the East Pacific Rise, which reaches almost to the surface at several points. Twelve thousand years ago, when the great ice cap of the last glaciation was still largely unmelted, and sea-level was 100 meters lower than it is today, the Rise would have formed a chain of steep and narrow antediluvian islands, as long as the Andes mountain range.” At that time, the land we now call Easter Island would simply have been the highest peak of a much larger island. Humans were traveling in these areas at that time and so might have settled at various places, including what is now the island of Easter Island. Besides its more well known name of Rapa Nui, Easter Island is also known as Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua, meaning ‘The Navel of the World’, and as Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, meaning ‘Eyes Looking at Heaven’. These ancient names, and a host of mythological details ignored by mainstream archaeologists, point to the possibility that the remote island may once have been a geodetic marker and the site of an astronomical observatory of a long forgotten civilization.

Speculations about this shadowy antediluvian culture include the notion that its mariners had charted the world’s oceans, that its astronomers had sophisticated knowledge of long-term astronomical cycles such as precession and cometary orbits, and that its historians had records of previous global cataclysms and the destruction they caused of even more ancient civilizations. In his book, Heaven’s Mirror, Hancock suggests that Easter Island may once have been a significant scientific outpost of this antediluvian civilization and that its location had extreme importance in a planet-spanning, mathematically precise grid of sacred sites. He writes, “The very existence of such an ancient world grid has been staunchly resisted by mainstream archaeologists and historians – as, of course, have all attempts to relate known sites to it. Nevertheless, the definite traces of lost astronomical knowledge that are to be seen on Easter Island, and the recurrent echoes of ancient Egyptian spiritual and cosmological themes, cast doubt on the scholarly explanation that the odd name ‘Navel of the World’ was adopted for purely ‘poetic and descriptive’ reasons.

We suspect that Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua may originally have been selected for settlement, and given its name, entirely because of its geodetic location.” “What we are suggesting therefore is that Easter Island might have originally have been settled in order to serve as a sort of geodetic beacon, or marker – fulfilling some as yet unguessed at function in an ancient global system of sky-ground co-ordinates that linked many so-called ‘world navels’”. Two other alternative scholars, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, have extensively studied the location and possible function of these geodetic markers. In their fascinating book, Uriel’s Machine, they suggest that one purpose of the geodetic markers was as part of a global network of sophisticated astronomical observatories dedicated to predicting and preparing for future cometary impacts and crustal displacement cataclysms. The great floods of archaic myths did not result from the melting of the ice caps between 13,000 and 8000 BC but rather from two great cataclysms that were caused by cosmic and cometary objects affecting the entire planet.

These cataclysms were 1) the pass-by of an enormous, perhaps moon-sized cosmic object and an ensuing planet-wide crustal displacement in 9600 BC, and 2) the seven cometary impacts of 7640 BC which resulted in the massive waves (3-5 miles high, traveling at over 400 miles per hour for distances of more than 2000 miles), volcanic activity and other terrestrial and climatological events recorded in myths all across the planet. Prior to these cataclysmic events however, in what is commonly called the late Paleolithic era, a maritime civilization may have existed with cities situated along coastlines that are now submerged beneath the seas. Moai statues, Easter Island The decline of culture on Easter Island In the past few decades various theories have been suggested for the rapid decline of Easter Island’s remarkable culture. Jared Diamond in his excellent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive explains that a few centuries after Easter Island’s initial colonization the resource needs of the growing population had begun to outpace the island's capacity to renew itself ecologically.

By the 1400s, the forests had been entirely cut, the rich ground cover had eroded away, the springs had dried up, and the vast flocks of birds coming to roost on the island had disappeared. With no logs to build the canoes necessary for offshore fishing, with depleted bird and wildlife food sources, and with declining crop yields because of the erosion of good soil, the nutritional intake of the people plummeted. First famine, then cannibalism, set in. Because the island could no longer feed the chiefs, bureaucrats and priests who kept the complex society running, the resulting chaos triggered a social and cultural collapse. By 1700 the population dropped to between one-quarter and one-tenth of its former number, and many of the statues were toppled during supposed “clan wars” of the 1600 and 1700’s. This all happened before the Europeans came. After they came, things got even worse.

To fully understand the tremendous social devastation that occurred on Easter Island it is vital to recognize that it was a consequence of two separate matters: the pre-European environmental degradation and ensuing cultural collapse and the inhumane behavior of many of the first European visitors, particularly the slavers who raped and murdered the islanders, introduced small pox and other diseases, and brutally removed the natives to mainland South America. Readers interested in more detailed information concerning the causes of Easter Island’s ecological devastation, its so-called civil war, and the genocide caused by European slavers will appreciate the article, From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui , written by Benny Peiser. Recent research: New findings indicate that Native Americans had visited Easter Island before Columbus sailed to the Americas. The study, Genome-wide Ancestry Patterns in Rapanui Suggest Pre-European Admixture with Native Americans, was conducted by a team of geneticists from the Natural History Museum of Denmark and published in the journal Current Biology on November 3, 2014.

The scientists analyzed genetic markers for 27 native Rapanui (Easter Islanders) and determined that 10 percent of their genetic admixture came from American Indians, while 75 percent was Polynesian and 15 percent was European. The study’s co-authors, Eske Willerslev and Anna-Sapfo Malaspina, argue that this evidence supports the possibility of Native American contact prior to the European ‘discovery’ of the island in AD 1722, in particular that interbreeding between the Rapa Nui and native people in South America occurred roughly between 1300 and 1500, or 19 to 23 generations ago. Another interesting matter is that recent studies of the DNA of sweet potatoes appear to confirm that the Polynesians had cultivated it before contact with Europeans, strong evidence of American Indian-Polynesian contact. A 2013 study by a French team, led by Caroline Roullier and Vincent Lebot, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed the DNA of sweet potatoes collected during the voyages of James Cook (who sailed the Pacific in the years 1768-1779).

Using these early and thus uncontaminated specimens, the researchers argued that their “results provide strong support for prehistoric transfer(s) of sweet potato from South America (Peru-Ecuador region) into Polynesia.” 1000+ images about MOAI on Pinterest | Statue of, The giants and Stone statues Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas MOAI The moai and ceremonial sites are along the coast, with a concentration on Easter Island's southeast coast. Here, the moai are more 'standardized' in design, and are believed to have been carved, transported, and erected between AD 1400 and 1600. They stand with their backs to the sea and are believed by most archaeologists to represent the spirits of ancestors, chiefs, or other high-ranking males who held important positions in the history of Easter Island, or Rapa Nuie.

96 Pins258.68k Followers Easter Island - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google Early Settlement The first human inhabitants of Rapa Nui (the Polynesian name for Easter Island; its Spanish name is Isla de Pascua) are believed to have arrived in an organized party of emigrants around 300-400 A.D. Tradition holds that the first king of Rapa Nui was Hoto-Matua, a ruler from a Polynesian subgroup (possibly from the Marquesa Islands) whose ship traveled thousands of miles before landing at Anakena, one of the few sandy beaches on the island’s rocky coast. Did You Know? After the decline of the moai culture, a new cult of bird worship developed on Easter Island. It was centered on a ceremonial village called Orongo, built on the rim of the crater of the Rano Kao volcano. The greatest evidence for the rich culture developed by the original settlers of Rapa Nui and their descendants is the existence of nearly 900 giant stone statues that have been found in diverse locations around the island.

Averaging 13 feet (4 meters) high, with a weight of 13 tons, these enormous stone busts–known as moai–were carved out of tuff (the light, porous rock formed by consolidated volcanic ash) and placed atop ceremonial stone platforms called ahus. It is still unknown precisely why these statues were constructed in such numbers and on such a scale, or how they were moved around the island. Phases of Island Culture Archaeological excavations of Easter Island reveal three distinct cultural phases: the early period (700-850 A.D.), the middle period (1050-1680) and the late period (post-1680). Between the early and middle periods, evidence has shown that many early statues were deliberately destroyed and rebuilt as the larger and heavier moai for which the island is most famous. During the middle period, ahus also contained burial chambers, and the images portrayed by moai are thought to have represented important figures that were deified after death. The biggest statue found dating to the middle period measures about 32 feet tall, and consists of a single block weighing about 82 tons (74,500 kilograms).

The late period of the island’s civilization was characterized by civil wars and general destruction; more statues were toppled, and many mataa, or obsidian spearpoints, have been found dating to that period. Island tradition claims that around 1680, after peacefully coexisting for many years, one of the island’s two main ethnic groups, known as the Short-Ears, rebelled against the Long-Ears, burning many of them to death on a pyre constructed along an ancient ditch at Poike, on the island’s far northeastern coast. Outsiders on Easter Island The first known European visitor to Easter Island was the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who arrived in 1722. The Dutch named the island Paaseiland (Easter Island) to commemorate the day they arrived. In 1770, the Spanish viceroy of Peru sent an expedition to the island; the explorers spent four days ashore and estimated a native population of some 3,000 people.

Just four years later, the British navigator Sir James Cook arrived to find Easter Island’s population decimated by what seemed to have been a civil war, with only 600 to 700 men and fewer than 30 women remaining. A French navigator, Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de La Perouse, found 2,000 people on the island when he arrived in 1786. A major slave raid from Peru in 1862, followed by epidemics of smallpox, reduced the population to only 111 people by 1877. By that time, Catholic missionaries had settled on Easter Island and begun to convert the population to Christianity, a process that was completed by the late 19th century. In 1888, Chile annexed Easter Island, leasing much of the land for sheep raising. The Chilean government appointed a civilian governor for Easter Island in 1965, and the island’s residents became full Chilean citizens. Easter Island Today An isolated triangle measuring 14 miles long by seven miles wide, Easter Island was formed by a series of volcanic eruptions.

In addition to its hilly terrain, the island contains many subterranean caves with corridors that extend deep into mountains of volcanic rock. The island’s largest volcano is known as Rano Kao, and its highest point is Mount Terevaka, which reaches 1,969 feet (600 meters) above sea level. It has a subtropical climate (sunny and dry) and temperate weather. Easter Island boasts no natural harbor, but ships can anchor off Hanga Roa on the west coast; it is the island’s largest village, with a population of roughly 3,300. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage site. It is now home to a mixed population, mostly of Polynesian ancestry and made up of the descendants of the Long-Ears and Short-Ears. Spanish is generally spoken, and the island has developed an economy largely based on tourism. Tags Easter Island Facts Easter Island Facts Interesting Facts on Easter Island Easter Island is one of the world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites. Easter Island is a small, hilly and treeless island of volcanic origin.

It is located in the Pacific Ocean approximately 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of the country of Chile, which owns the island. Easter Island is sixty-three square miles in size and has three extinct volcanoes, the tallest rising to 1674 feet. Technically speaking, the island is a single massive volcano rising over ten thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean floor. Easter Island History The oldest known names of Easter island are Te Pito o Te Henua, meaning ‘The Center of the World’ and Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, meaning ‘Eyes Looking at Heaven’. In the 1860’s Tahitian sailors gave the island the name Rapa Nui, meaning ‘Great Rapa,’ due to its resemblance to another island in Polynesia called Rapa Iti, meaning ‘Little Rapa’. The island received its current name, Easter Island, from the Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen who was the first European to visit on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722.

In the early 1950s, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (famous for his Kon-Tiki and Ra raft voyages across the oceans) popularized the idea that Easter Island had originally been settled by advanced societies of Indians from the coast of South America. Extensive archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic research has conclusively shown this hypothesis to be inaccurate. It is now recognized that the original inhabitants of Easter Island were of Polynesian stock (DNA extracts from skeletons have confirmed this), that they most probably came from the Marquesas or Society islands, and that they arrived as early as 318 AD. Easter Island Statues Easter Island’s most famous features are its enormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 of which once stood upon massive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart to create an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai statues, in various stages of completion, are scattered throughout the island. Nearly all the moai are carved from the hard stone of the Rano Raraku volcano.

The average moai statue is 14 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Some moai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons. Depending upon the size of the statues, it is estimated that 50-150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside on sleds and rollers made from the island's trees. A small number of the moai were once capped with ‘crowns’ or ‘hats’ of red volcanic stone. The meaning and purpose of these capstones is not known. Easter Island Mysteries Scholars are unable to explain the meaning and use of the moai statues. It is assumed that their carving and erection derived from an idea rooted in similar practices found elsewhere in Polynesia but which evolved in a unique way on Easter Island. The statues may have been used for religious purposes. Carved stone and wooden objects in ancient Polynesian religions, when properly fashioned and ritually prepared, were believed to have a magical spiritual essence called mana. Archaeologists have suggested that the moai statues of Easter Island were created with a similar purpose in mind.

The Mystery of Easter Island | People & Places | Smithsonian The Mystery of Easter Island New findings rekindle old debates about when the first people arrived and why their civilization collapsed Outer slope of the Rano Raraku volcano, the quarry of the Moais with many uncompleted statues. ( Easter Island ) By Whitney Dangerfield smithsonian.com March 31, 2007 Hundreds of years ago, a small group of Polynesians rowed their wooden outrigger canoes across vast stretches of open sea, navigating by the evening stars and the day's ocean swells. When and why these people left their native land remains a mystery. But what is clear is that they made a small, uninhabited island with rolling hills and a lush carpet of palm trees their new home, eventually naming their 63 square miles of paradise Rapa Nui—now popularly known as Easter Island. On this outpost nearly 2,300 miles west of South America and 1,100 miles from the nearest island, the newcomers chiseled away at volcanic stone, carving moai, monolithic statues built to honor their ancestors.

They moved the mammoth blocks of stone—on average 13 feet tall and 14 tons—to different ceremonial structures around the island, a feat that required several days and many men. Eventually the giant palms that the Rapanui depended on dwindled. Many trees had been cut down to make room for agriculture; others had been burned for fire and used to transport statues across the island. The treeless terrain eroded nutrient-rich soil, and, with little wood to use for daily activities, the people turned to grass. "You have to be pretty desperate to take to burning grass," says John Flenley, who with Paul Bahn co-authored The Enigmas of Easter Island. By the time Dutch explorers—the first Europeans to reach the remote island—arrived on Easter day in 1722, the land was nearly barren. Although these events are generally accepted by scientists, the date of the Polynesians' arrival on the island and why their civilization ultimately collapsed is still being debated. Many experts maintain that the settlers landed around 800 A.D. They believe the culture thrived for hundreds of years, breaking up into settlements and living off the fruitful land.

According to this theory, the population grew to several thousand, freeing some of the labor force to work on the moai. But as the trees disappeared and people began to starve, warfare broke out among the tribes. In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond refers to the Rapanui's environmental degradation as "ecocide" and points to the civilization's demise as a model of what can happen if human appetites go unchecked. But new findings by archaeologist Terry Hunt of the University of Hawai'i may indicate a different version of events. In 2000, Hunt, archaeologist Carl Lipo of California State University, Long Beach, and their students began excavations at Anakena, a white sandy beach on the island's northern shore. The researchers believed Anakena would have been an attractive area for the Rapanui to land, and therefore may be one of the earliest settlement sites. In the top several layers of their excavation pit, the researchers found clear evidence of human presence: charcoal, tools—even bones, some of which had come from rats. Underneath they found soil that seemed absent of human contact. This point of first human interaction, they figured, would tell them when the first Rapanui had arrived on the island.

Hunt sent the samples from the dig to a lab for radiocarbon dating, expecting to receive a date around 800 A.D., in keeping with what other archaeologists had found. Instead, the samples dated to 1200 A.D. This would mean the Rapanui arrived four centuries later than expected. The deforestation would have happened much faster than originally assumed, and the human impact on the environment was fast and immediate. Hunt suspected that humans alone could not destroy the forests this quickly. In the sand's layers, he found a potential culprit—a plethora of rat bones. Scientists have long known that when humans colonized the island, so too did the Polynesian rat, having hitched a ride either as stowaways or sources of food. However they got to Easter Island, the rodents found an unlimited food supply in the lush palm trees, believes Hunt, who bases this assertion on an abundance of rat-gnawed palm seeds. Two statues sit on the slopes of the Rano Raraku statue quarry. Nearly half of Easter Island's statues remain near this area. (Terry L. Hunt) Hanga Roa Village is one of Easter Island's main settlements. (Terry L.

Hunt) The moai at Ahu Tongariki form the island's largest ceremonial platform. A tidal wave in 1960 sent 15 of these statues inland. Some 30 years later, archaeologists finally restored the site. (Terry L. Hunt) Students with the University of Hawai'i Rapa Nui Archaeological Field School inspect the stratification at Anakena Beach in 2005. (Terry L. Hunt) Petroglyphs still remain at the Orongo Ceremonial Village. (Terry L. Hunt) Polynesians chiseled the moai (above, on the lower slopes of the Rano Raraku statue quarry) out of volcanic rock. Carved in honor of ancestors, the statues stood on average 13 feet tall and weighed 14 tons. (Terry L. Hunt) At Anakena Beach, several moai, perched on a four-foot tall stone wall called an "ahu," stand with their back to the sea. (Terry L. Hunt) Participants in the University of Hawai'i Rapa Nui Archaeological Field School fly a kite at Anakena Beach.

The moai of Ahu Nau Nau provide the backdrop. (Terry L. Hunt) Under these conditions, he says, "Rats would reach a population of a few million within a couple of years." From there, time would take its toll. "Rats would have an initial impact, eating all of the seeds. With no new regeneration, as the trees die, deforestation can proceed slowly," he says, adding that people cutting down trees and burning them would have only added to the process. Eventually, the degeneration of trees, according to his theory, led to the downfall of the rats and eventually of the humans. The demise of the island, says Hunt, "was a synergy of impacts. But I think it is more rat than we think." Hunt's findings caused a stir among Easter Island scientists. John Flenley, a pollen analyst at New Zealand's University of Massey, accepts that the numerous rats would have some impact on the island. "Whether they could have deforested the place," he says, "I'm not sure." Flenley has taken core samples from several lakebeds formed in the island's volcanic craters. In these cores, he has found evidence of charcoal.

"Certainly there was burning going on. Sometimes there was a lot of charcoal," he says. "I'm inclined to think that the people burning the vegetation was more destructive [than the rats]." Adding to the civilization's demise, European explorers brought with them Western diseases like syphilis and smallpox. "I think that the collapse happened shortly before European discovery of the island," Flenley says. "But it could be that the collapse was more of a general affair than we think, and the Europeans had an effect on finishing it off." Flenley, who initially surveyed Easter Island in 1977, was one of the first scientists to analyze the island's pollen—a key indicator of foresting. The island's volcanic craters, which once housed small lakes, were ideal sites for his research. "The sediment was undisturbed. Each layer was put down on top of the layer before," says Flenley, referring to core samples from one crater's lakebeds. "It's like a history book. You just have to learn to read the pages." The samples showed an abundance of pollen, indicating that the island had once been heavily forested. The pollen rate then dropped off dramatically.

"When I dated the deforestation at that site, it came starting at about 800 A.D. and finishing at this particular site as early as 1000 A.D.," a finding in line with other radiocarbon dates on the island. Since this was one of the first settlement sites, Flenley says, it makes sense that deforestation would have occurred even earlier than it did on other parts of the island. This crater, Flenley believes, would have been one of the only sources of freshwater on the island, and therefore one of the first places the Polynesians would have settled. "It wasn't only a site of freshwater, it was also a very sheltered crater," he says. "It would have been possible to grow tropical crops." Anakena, the beach where Hunt did his research, would have been a good place to keep their canoes and to go fishing, but not a good place to live. Hunt, Flenley says, "has definitely shown a minimum age for people being there, but the actual arrival of people could have been somewhat earlier." Other scientists who work on the island also remain skeptical of Hunt's later colonization date of 1200 A.D.

Jo Anne Van Tilburg, founder of the Easter Island Statue Project and a scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, is one of the island's leading archaeologists and has studied the moai for nearly 30 years. "It's not logical that they were constructing megalithic sites within a few years of arrival on the island," she says. Van Tilburg and her colleagues have surveyed all 887 of the island's statues. "By 1200 A.D., they were certainly building platforms," she says referring to the stone walls on which the islanders perched the moai, "and others have described crop intensification at about the same time. It's hard for me to be convinced that his series of excavations can overturn all of this information." Despite these questions, Hunt remains confident in his findings. Many scientists, he says, "get a date, tell a story, invest a lot in it, and then don't want to give it up. They had a very good environmental message." Hunt, Lipo, and their students continue to do excavation work on the island. They have recently moved on from Anakena to do work on the northwest coast.

They also plan to date the earliest rat-gnawed seeds. "We keep getting a little more evidence," says Hunt, who has published his findings in Science. "Everything looks very consistent." Scientists may never find a conclusive answer to when the Polynesians colonized the island and why the civilization collapsed so quickly. Whether an invasive species of rodent or humans devastated the environment, Easter Island remains a cautionary tale for the world. Whitney Dangerfield, a freelance writer in Washington, D.C. whose work has appeared in National Geographic and the Washington Post, is a regular contributor to Smithsonian.com. Like this article?

Question: The Moai, large stone carvings of mysterious origin, inhabit what south Pacific island
Answer: Easter Island